Delhi

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India

Thursday 20th. February 2020
Every thing went to plan, with the train down to Gatwick airport, the overnight stay at the Premiere Inn and it’s always a good result if you can get extra leg room on the plane... without paying extra for it. A 9.40 start so didn’t have to be up at silly o'clock and 6 hrs and a bit with a good tail wind we arrive in Dubai and only an hour and a half until our connecting flight to Dubai. So all in all just shy of 11 hrs travelling ,which for us was a doddle. We both watched the Korean film Parasite, which was excellent and I watched Judy, and one called Denmark with Rafe Spall and I got half way through the Fisherman’s friends....
Delhi Airport.... bedlam! So many flights arriving at 3am ! The immigration queues took ages, not helped by people not filling out the forms properly and having stood in a queue for an hour get to the desk, having been given the forms on the plane they then realized that they haven’t written the hotel name down, so they have to scramble around looking it up......it took about 2hours to get through everything. A few Face masks in evedence... Our taxi man from the hotel was fast asleep on the trolley by the exit with my name on a sign! Then it was bedlam trying to get out of the carpark, cars, taxis, busses all trying to compete to get out first and show who had the best horn....
So Delhi time is 5hrs ahead of us so it was nice to get to bed and our bodies thinking that it was only midnight, but of course we missed breakfast the next day as in reality it was 5am.
So we’ve had a couple of days doing the sights... Perhaps a hotel convenient for the railway station was not such a great idea... those trains go all through the night and toot their horns just to let you know!
Together with all the tuktuks and cars all beeping their horns it’s quite a busy area. Walking along the streets can be very precarious, what with the broken pavements, bikes etc. Parked on what pavements there are, stepping over sleeping bodies weaving in and out of traffic, trying to not get in the way of people spitting!! And general rubbish everywhere..... am I making it sound good! ....... so many people come over to talk...’where are you from?’ how long are you here?... welcome to India! .. where are you going next? Why are you going this way? Why not go by tuktuk?( Oh what a surprise they have one!!!) Every one wants to sell you something! It gets very tiresome.
I’ve been on many holiday snaps over the years (tall, white hair, good looks and all that !)but here they take selfies to another level and I’d read about this before coming...it’s just white people in general, you can see someone sidling up to you with their camera and saying 'selfie'..... Or they just take a photo whilst pretending to be taking something else......
Our first train journey tomorrow, to the pink city of Jaipur and meeting up with lots of flowery friends.
Don’t get me wrong...it’s been interesting!!

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Photos

ISA Khan's Tomb
Part of Humayun Tomb complex

Humayun's Tomb
Mughal tomb that was inspiration for the Taj Mahal. Built in 1565